The Wickedness in You
by jekyllandjess
Summary: Takes place after Kate's return. May or may not continue it..."Nothing that beautiful could ever be wicked."


"Thanks for this, Betty. I really appreciate it. I promise I won't stay long." As she said this, Kate glanced sideways toward the blonde on the bed beside her, her lips slightly upturned, forming a small smile. But her happiness was betrayed by the disconcerting look in her eyes. Betty was aware of her true demeanor right away, but she dared not say anything. No need to spark another conflict so soon.

"It's no problem. You know that, Kate. Remember what I said when you first came to work? You're safe here, and I'll always make sure of that." Feeling as if she had said too much too soon, her face reddened and she looked down at her hands.

"Stay as long as you need." Betty continued, mumbling with slightly-forced apathy to cover up her prior eagerness.

Silence coated the musty apartment air for several moments, until Kate pointed from her spot on the bed, to a picture tucked in the corner of Betty's dresser mirror across the small room.

"You still have that picture? My father was sure to burn the copies…and he turned their destruction into a huge display, of course." She paused, her expression darkening. "But he's gone now. His death was his _grand finale_." Kate spit these last words out with contempt.

"Oh, and remind me to go back to that _friend_ of yours so I can give him a piece of my mind. Giving my picture out to random strangers, I still cannot believe he did that!" The frustrated woman shook her head in disbelief.

"Aw Kate, how was he supposed to know-" But, noticing her friend's perturbed look, Betty ceased her interjections and changed to a gentler tone.

"Just, let me know when you wanna go, I'll come with." Betty's reply was more of a statement than a request, and Kate knew this. She threw a smile the blonde's way.

"Of course, Betty. Well anyway, the point is, you need a better picture to remember me by…not this-this, _wickedness_." Kate had risen from the bed and was by the dresser, holding the 5x5 in her hands. She eyed the waste bin sitting by the dresser and began to crumple the picture violently between her fists.

At this sudden action, Betty shot up and rushed to Kate's side. She gently untwined the girl's pale fingers and Kate let her, staying silent as Betty took the photo and tried to smooth the wrinkles out. She abruptly stopped this when she looked into Kate's eyes and realized that she was crying.

_"Kate…"_

Kate's sobs escaped quietly, but powerful tremors ran through to her shoulders, causing them to quake violently. Without hesitation, Betty instinctively wrapped her arms around her friend, holding her tight. She felt Kate's hot, wet tears fall like pinpricks onto her skin, where Kate's face was buried between the crook of the blonde's neck.

They stood there for a while, the only sound being Kate's gasps as she struggled with the intake of air. When this, along with the shaking, began to subside, somehow Kate's hands had found Betty's and grasped them tight. Betty stared down at their entwined hands, not daring to look into Kate's tearstained eyes. She struggled to find consoling words, but it was hard to maintain her own composure when she herself felt physically drained from Kate's breakdown. When she did manage to speak, it was barely a whisper.

_ "Nothing that beautiful could ever be wicked." _

At her soft spoken words, Kate abruptly shifted away, releasing her grip. Betty slackened her arms, letting them droop at her sides, trying not to concentrate on the increasing coolness growing on her now bare flesh where Kate's skin had just previously mirrored her own. Her pulse was quickened and she could hear the blood pumping in her ears. There was no way she could hide now. That one sentence had dripped with emotion, it bled down onto the crumpled picture Betty now held, dirtying it with splotches of red, as red as the dress that the Kate wore during that shoot that seemed so long ago.

"Beauty, recognizing beauty…that's wickedness, Betty. It must be."

After this quizzical statement, Kate said nothing more, she simply stared with big eyes, in half wonder and half shock, into Betty's own, and the blonde wanted desperately now to look away, but she couldn't. The girl's eyes were like magnets, and Betty realized in that moment that she would endure anything; another disaster, just like the one that exploded weeks prior; complete with the insults, the shame…. _anything_, if it meant that she could keep staring into those eyes.

At this sudden realization, Betty was the one to look away.

She couldn't want this, and she _wouldn't_ want this. Not anymore. She let Kate's picture fall to the floor. Grabbing her purse off of the bed, she mumbled something incoherent to even her own ears, something about Ivan, maybe, and started towards the door. Before she could leave the room, however, she felt a pressure on the hand that was ready to turn the doorknob.

"Betty, where are you going? I thought we were going to spend the night in…"

The blonde whipped her head toward Kate's voice but kept her eyes fixed on the cracking ceiling above, her voice as steady as she could manage.

"You can. I'm going out. Hopefully I'll find some other _deviants_ to go _consort_ with. You wouldn't want to be there for _that_, I'm sure." Betty didn't know where that had come from, but she didn't question it.

A new energy pulsed through her veins now as she recalled that night when those similar words left Kate's mouth. And she had just stood there. Her best friend watched her be humiliated and didn't do a thing about it.

_That wouldn't happen again. _

Using the newfound adrenaline, she tore her hand out from under Kate's and walked briskly out of the room, slamming the door behind her.


End file.
